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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27617615">Broken Soldier</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EbonyMortisRose/pseuds/EbonyMortisRose'>EbonyMortisRose</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The story of Dylan Jackal &amp; Mr Hyde [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Vampyr (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood and Violence, Blood of hate, Dylan wants to die Hyde does not!, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, dark humour</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:55:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27617615</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EbonyMortisRose/pseuds/EbonyMortisRose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Having found his wife (Mary's) grave all Dylan want's to do is end this nightmare and rest in peace. But his inner beast Hyde won't go without a fight.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The story of Dylan Jackal &amp; Mr Hyde [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821553</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Broken Soldier</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His claws sank into the soil of the freshly dug grave, just wanting to be that little bit closer to his beloved Mary. His once-raging howls were now reduced to ragged sobs and his throat was raw from his grief-stricken cries and inhuman screeches.<br/>He had wept so many bloody tears, that his beast inside had started to grumble its discontent, wanting him to get up and hunt.<br/>But he didn’t want to move from this spot. Didn’t want to leave his Mary now that he had found her.<br/>Reluctantly he then withdraws his mud-caked hands and hugs himself tight and begins to rock on his knees. Trying to give himself just a little comfort. Trying to remember what it was like to feel her arms around him.<br/>He then remembered an old tune he would sing to her when she was sad and now in depths of his grief, he sang it to her in a low whisper.<br/>“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey…”<br/>He swallows the lump in his throat that threatens to bring with it more cries of anguish, and with trembling lips carries on.<br/>“You’ll always know dear, how much I loved you...please don't...please…”<br/>He stifles another sob, and squeezes himself tighter, almost cracking his own ribs. His hand then brushes the top of his service revolver and he gets a dark idea.<br/><br/>‘<b>Don't’</b> - Hyde grumbles from his subconscious.<br/><br/>But Dylan ignores him and takes out the gun and clicks open the barrel to check to make sure it was fully loaded.<br/><br/>‘<b>I said don't!’</b><b> - </b>Hyde barks again with malice.<b><br/><br/></b>Again he ignores the vile thing within him and instead focuses his sore and blood-encrusted eyes on Mary's grave marker. It was a large simple wooden cross, and he felt a hypocrite kneeling before such a symbol weeping corrupted tears.<br/>He then had a fleeting wonder where his baby boy was buried. But in the end, he concluded, it didn't matter after tonight he would be with both of them. Surely he hoped, god could not be so cruel as to keep them apart in the afterlife.<br/><br/>His hand was steady with purpose as he raised the pistol to his chest, resting it point-blank over his heart. It was time to end this nightmare he thought. Then to her marker, he whispered. “I’ll see you soon my love.”</p><p><b>‘NO!’</b> - Hyde growled in his mind.</p><p>The shot echoed around the graveyard. Its reverberations bouncing off the surrounding marble tombs. From a nearby tree a flock of pigeons startled from their resting place thudded off into the night, and Dylan cried out. Not in pain, but frustration. As Hyde at the last second had taken control of his left hand, knocking the shot clear of his heart making him hit a useless lung. But blood still rushed up his shrivelled windpipe, pooling in his mouth and began dribbling down his chin as he snarled at his inner beast.<br/>“Damn you, Hyde, let me die!”<br/>“<b>No, I do not want to die!</b>” - He felt his own lips grind out Hyde's words.<br/><br/>Then his left hand tried to grapple the pistol from his right. “It’s time for you to die too Hyde, can’t you see that?” He hoarsely pleaded.<br/>He then staggers to his feet, trying with fingers slick with dirt, to wrestle the pistol back. During the struggle, the trigger is compressed once more and another shot barked out into the night. Again it missed its intended target and instead flew off into the void of shadows that surrounded them.<br/>Hyde then gave a snarl, and his left hand suddenly grabbed his right wrist and yanked it up to his bloody maw. He then forced his vicious teeth to bite down with such ferocity Dylan not only heard but felt bones crunch.<br/>This shock of pain allowed him to regain control of his vocal cords and lips, and he cried out, instinctively letting go of the weapon. Only for Hyde then to grab it and throw it far into the graveyard.<br/>He knew he couldn't go after it, not when he was struggling so hard to simply get control of his own mouth.<br/><br/>Then, triumphant Hyde sneered. <b>“Do you really think it would be that easy to get rid of me?”</b><br/><br/>Exasperated Dylan grabbed the sides of his head. As if squeezing it would somehow make that parasite in his mind understand. “Can’t you see you are me? You are the beast. You are everything I despise about this condition. You are the embodiment of my corrupted soul. My hunger. My thirst. My need to hurt and harm. You were never meant to be sentient! In others, you are just an annoying silent urge!”<br/>He was yelling now, looking to any who would be foolish enough to visit lost loved ones at this hour like a man who had lost leave of his senses ranting with a ghostly rival.<br/><br/><b>“And yet here I am, and you will never be rid of me!”,</b> Hyde sneered.<b><br/></b><br/>Dylan then staggered for a moment, holding his hand to his chest. As his attention was drawn to the pooling blood under his shirt and coat, causing his clothes to stick to his skin.<br/>The pain that throbbed from the bullet wound was tolerable and morbidly he thought It was just a minor inconvenience that soon would not matter anyway.<br/>Then Hyde began to snigger. It started as a low rumble deep in his throat. Then came out of his mouth raspy and sardonic.<br/><br/><b>“So, you want to die? Well, you're about to get your wish. Your weak antics have rung the dinner bell.”</b><br/><br/>Dylan was confused for only a moment. Until he saw stepping out of the gloom, three skals. They looked as if they had just crawled out of nearby graves. Each wearing the tattered remnants of the clothes they had clearly died in and each showing signs of rot and decay on any exposed grime encrusted flesh. The moonlight glistened of open oozing wounds and made their bloodshot eyes look like black voids.<br/>They then shambled forward slowly, sniffing the air and when they detected the fresh blood they each began to emit pitiful gargled keening sounds.</p><p>Under normal circumstances, Dylan would have been scared right now, turning and running for his undead life. Just like he had done back in the french catacombs when confronted by such packs.<br/>But now he welcomed these harbingers of disease, it seemed fitting to have his life torn from him as he had done to so many others.<br/>So, he smiled and slowly raised his hands. Which suddenly went back down to his sides.<br/><br/>“ <b>What the hell do you think you are doing?”,</b> Growled Hyde. </p><p>Hyde then snarled at one of the skals, who was getting too close for comfort. A man whose nose was missing, showing a glistening oozing cavity with something wriggling within its depths.<br/>Dylan just sniggered and raised his hands again and purposefully flicked his chewed on wrist at the approaching skal, baiting it to come closer with his blood.<br/>Again Hyde rammed his hands down at his sides, causing Dylan to wince as his damaged wrist began to throb in protest. That rough jolting movement also caused spasms of pain to radiate out for the bullet wound in his chest and he gave out a sharp cry.<br/><br/>Hyde then snarled, “ <b>Stop that! You are making us look weak. You are a soldier, defend yourself!”</b></p><p>“My war is over Hyde, please let me rest in peace!” Dylan pleaded.</p><p>He was then going to try again to make Hyde understand his desperate want to be with his wife and child. When a fourth Skal descended from the heavens with an almighty screech and landed on his back sinking his serrated teeth deep into his shoulder.<br/>The bite was so fierce those wicked teeth even sank through his thick leather coat and only stopped biting down when they hit his collar bone.<br/>He cried out in both shock and pain and stumbled forward claws extended, and began to rake at the things face. This sudden surge of adrenaline and the primal need to defend himself quickly overrode all previous thoughts of suicide.<br/>Then like a pack of wild dogs on a hunt seeing that one had attacked the prey, the others ran to join in, whipped into a frenzy at the scent of fresh blood in the air and the promise of an easy kill.<br/><br/><b>“You are pathetic. I will deal with this!”</b> Hyde hissed.</p><p>Hyde then threw back his head and let out a horrendous screech that would have made a banshee proud. Even Dylan felt his spine vibrate with the sheer power of it.<br/>The three surging skals immediately skidded to a halt, rethinking their earlier charge and actually flinched as if hit by a physical blow.<br/>Then during those few seconds of reprieve, Hyde took two of his claws and rammed them into the skals eyes that was savaging his shoulder and his thumb hooked into one of its nostrils. He then squeezed, until he felt the satisfying pop of those jelly-like orbs and felt the fragile nasal cartilage crush beneath his vice-like grip.<br/>He then violently wrenched his hand up, ripping the front of the skals face clean off as if it were wearing a mask made of flesh. And then in another swift movement before Dylan could put up any defence Hyde shoved the vile thing into their mouth and began to chew on it with relish.</p><p>Dylan instantly began to gag and retch and in his obvious distracted state the three skals took that opportunity to regain their composure and all charged at once, rugby tackling him to the floor.<br/>Razor-sharp teeth quickly began attacking any exposed flesh and talon-like claws tore at his clothing.<br/>The skal on his back even faceless and now trapped under him still clung to his shoulder, its own nails raking across his neck and head desperate to keep purchase.<br/><br/><b>“WE WILL NOT DIE!”</b> Hyde bellowed. As he felt his precious life's blood being drained from him from numerous bites.<br/><br/>Within seconds he was starting to become ravenous, the need for blood overtaking all rational thought. And soon the sane, conscious man was slowly being drowned out in a sea of red bestial urges as Hyde fought tooth and claw against their attackers.<br/>He tried to fight against the red tide. Tried so hard to make Hyde think through his actions rather than blindly lashing out. But his sheer rage was too much to combat and he was growing weaker by the moment.<br/><br/>Then he heard a familiar faint noise that beckoned to him. It was almost drowned out by his own cries of pain. It was a comforting thrumming tune that slowly increased in volume and in this red mindscape it felt like he was back in the womb. As the sound finally drowned out all external noise he suddenly felt safe shielded from all the hurt and pain that was happening to him out there in the cruel world.<br/>Without lyrics it spoke to him lulling him to sleep, reassuring him that it was alright to give in to his beast. To let Hyde wreak bloody vengeance on all those who had hurt him. '<em>It is their turn to feel pain</em> <em> ' </em> , she seductively whispered.<br/>‘ <em> Let Hyde show them how much you have suffered my broken soldier’ </em> .<br/>He knew that voice knew who she was. Hyde had kept her at bay all these months, but now occupied with fighting for their very lives she was free to stalk his subconscious once more. Pulling at the strings of his pain, his grief, his anger at his maker for condemning him to this existence.<br/>She then took on the form in his mind's eye of his beloved, naked, drenched in blood and raised her hands to him beckoning him. Still singing her song of hate that made his very blood boil with a need for vengeance.<br/>He knew it wasn't his Mary, he knew he should fight. But then he realised at that moment Hyde was more than just the embodiment of his beast. He was his strength, his guardian that Henry had installed to keep her locked away and without him, he could do nothing else but submit to her call, and so he sank into her searing blood-drenched embrace and heard himself whisper. 'Make them all pay.'</p><p>There was then an almighty howl that even penetrated his warm safe cocoon followed shortly after by the muffled cries of creatures in abject agony, the cracking of bones, and the squelching sound of limbs and organs being eviscerated.<br/>Then he could detect a sour vinegar scent, it was a smell he recognised, dead blood and a lot of it. It saturated the air around him and dragged him out of his safe haven in his mind, ripping him from her embrace and forced him back out into the harsh reality of the graveyard once more.<br/><br/>The first sensation that greeted him when his eyes opening was PAIN. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t hurt, he quickly realised. <br/>It was hard to focus on just one thing as his brain began to process his numerous injuries and he imagined this is what it must have felt like after being hit by a mortar round. Then white-hot pain flashed through him when he tried to move his torso to sit up from the ground he now realised he was laid on. Instinctively his hand flew to his stomach and it sank into a large gash there causing him to grunt. Black flecks then began floated in his usually bright white vision and he knew he was on the verge of passing out.<br/>But then he saw the glistening mounds of flesh surrounding him and realised there was some sick order to this butchery. To his right was indeed the remnants of the skals, looking like they had been through a blender and turning his head painfully to the left he saw four decapitated heads, their gruesome faces each frozen in a rictus of terror which now unnervingly stared at him accusingly.<br/>He swallowed the bile rising in his throat and hoarsely whispered. “Why...why did you do that?” </p><p><strong>“A warning...we are the Beast... they should fear us..we…”<br/></strong><br/>Dylan sagged back down onto the damp grass no longer having the strength to even lift up his head and mumbled. “We...are dying…”</p><p><strong>“No!”</strong> Hyde barked, causing blood to pool in the back of their throat<strong> “Dylan wake up!... Dylan!"<br/><br/></strong> Dylan then suddenly felt like he floating far away again, not off into the red sea of rage as before but this time into a numbing black void. He was only vaguely aware of the faint sound of heavy footfalls on cobbles, then the creak of metal, followed by the splashing of water. He's about to drift off further into that welcoming blackness when suddenly excruciating pain once more makes him sit bolt upright and cry out. "Aaargh!."<br/>He looked down to see Hyde pull out a long claw that he had just used to probe the bullet wound in his chest and pitifully cried. “What the hell is wrong with you!”<br/><strong>“Ah, there you are.”</strong><br/>“You...are a sadist!”<br/>Hyde chuffed out a short laugh <strong>“I thrive on pain. I have saved us, you are welcome.”</strong><br/>“What?” - He then realised they had changed location, they were no longer in the graveyard. But in some sewer tunnel by the looks of the brickwork that surrounded them and the foul stench of the water that they now sat in.<br/><br/>“This...is a sewer tunnel. You brought us into the wolves den are you insane? I thought you wanted to live?"</p><p>
  <strong>“Sun up soon, was the nearest hole, also one prey was here but not like others it ran away.”</strong>
</p><p>“Another skal?’</p><p>
  <strong>“Yes"</strong>
</p><p>"It's gone to fetch others to finish me off, please let them.”<br/><br/>He couldn’t take much more of this, he’d lost too much blood. His wounds were too severe to heal on their own and even almost drowned out by the violent throbbing and stabbing agony he was in. He could still feel the tingling sensation at the back of his neck warning him that dawn was on its way and would drag him into the void whether Hyde liked it or not. Then the rats would pick his fetid corpse clean.<br/>He tried to keep his increasingly heavy eyelids open. But soon he didn't even have the strength to do that simple task and so let them drift shut. But once again he only had a seconds reprieve when Hyde poked his finger once more into a wound. Sending a bolt of pain through his spine jolting him back to an upright sitting position.<br/><br/>"Äaargh..pour l'amour de la merde! Hyde! haven't I suffered enough!" - He was whimpering now mewling like a wounded dog.<br/><br/><strong>"You need to talk."</strong></p><p>"What...to..who?</p><p>
  <strong>"Female in the shadows."</strong>
</p><p>"Who?...where? I don't see anyone?" His head swam as he moved his lamp-like eyes around the tunnel's interior. They were so bright in this dank place they cast little circular pools of light that travelled where ever he looked, lighting up the cracked and moss riddled walls and finally picked out from the gloom a set of black-clothed feet. They travelled up revealing the hem of a tattered black dress, then further up still to land on the ghostly visage of a veiled widow.<br/>Dylan flinched and exclaimed through tattered vocal cords - “Merde!...a ghost!"- But then instantly regretted that action as his world swam out of focus for a few seconds.</p><p><strong>“No, a skal.</strong>”</p><p>The veiled woman did not move she simply stood with her back straight and shoulders back, radiating a palpable air of nobility that seemed so out of place in this fetid stinking sewer. Then in a voice that was crisp and clear she stated. "I am Old Bridget, welcome home Dylan."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Bonus points to those who spotted the Venom refrences.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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